What Congressmen Are Hiding

As charges of sexual harassment and assault swept from Hollywood to Washington, Congress has faced questions about how it addresses such claims. The answer: terribly.

For two decades, taxpayers have been underwriting secret payments to people who accuse lawmakers of sexual misconduct under a 1995 law called, paradoxically, the Congressional Accountability Act. The legislation applied to Congress many laws on workplace safety, employment and civil rights from which it had been exempt. In the process, it established an account to pay settlements, which prevented lawmakers from being personally liable, and created an Office of Compliance that kept charges and payments secret.

On Sunday, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan stepped away from his post as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee as the House Ethics Committee investigates reports that Mr. Conyers, the longest-serving House member, in 2015 settled a wrongful dismissal complaint with a woman who said she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.” (Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, faces a likely Senate Ethics Committee investigation after a woman said he forcibly kissed and groped her in 2006, before he was in politics.)

Congressional sexual misconduct is likely far more prevalent than the settlement figures suggest, because Congress lacks safeguards common in large institutions. Lawmakers get no mandatory training in appropriate behavior toward their staff. Employees, many young and female, say they get little to no guidance on where to report predatory behavior. Victims who do find their way to the Compliance Office are required to undergo counseling, mediation and a 30-day “cooling off period” before filing a formal complaint.

Early this month the Senate adopted a bipartisan resolution requiring its members and staff to participate in anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training; in coming days the House is expected to follow suit. But the heavier lift is overhauling how harassment complaints are handled. In the House, Representative Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, and Representative Barbara Comstock, a Virginia Republican, are leading a bipartisan push for legislation that prohibits nondisclosure agreements as a condition of initiating a complaint, makes mediation and counseling optional before a victim can file a complaint and requires lawmakers who settle discrimination cases to repay the Treasury. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, is championing similar legislation in the Senate. But lawmakers are divided on the question of whether to unmask lawmakers and settlements from before this year. Some legislators, including the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, have said that revealing details from those cases could jeopardize the anonymity of victims. If Congress is serious about change, it should pass legislation that grants victims, not legislators, the choice.

It’s sobering to recall that the 1995 law was passed three years after another congressional scandal, in which House members of both parties were censured and prosecuted for abusing accounts with the House bank, in some cases writing checks for tens of thousands of dollars they didn’t have. The same environment of entitlement, secrecy and lax rules led to the current situation. Both parties have controlled the House and Senate in the years since the Congressional Accountability Act was passed, and neither has pushed to better protect the thousands of staffers who do the bulk of the work on Capitol Hill. Righting this wrong would seem obvious for Democrats, who led the condemnation of President Trump for his videotaped boasts of sexual assault. So it was not encouraging to hear Ms. Pelosi on Sunday, delivering a weak, he-said she-said defense of Mr. Conyers.

Decades of hushed-up complaints show sexual misconduct is as terrible an open secret in Congress as in Hollywood. Legislators have a chance to correct their poor handling of a national problem. They should seize it.